Third Secret of Fatima: No Apocalypse Now

VATICAN CITY, June 26 (Reuters) - The Vatican published the "Third Secret of Fatima" on Monday and assured the faithful it referred to a violent past rather than an apocalyptic future.

The gist of the secret -- said to have been told by the Madonna to three Portuguese shepherd children in 1917 -- predicted communism's persecution of Christianity in the 20th century and foretold the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul, the Vatican says.

But mostly, Vatican officials said, it pointed to the hope of a brighter future forged by the sufferings of the past.

"It encourages us by showing that even in a world which was half destroyed there is a greater force and death does not have the last word," said Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's doctrinal department.

Ratzinger, speaking at the presentation of a 43-page document called "The Vision of Fatima", said that by focusing the interpretation of the secret on the past, humanity could learn from it and be hopeful for the future.

SECRET HAD INSPIRED DOOMSDAY CULTS

Over the years, the Vatican's refusal to make the secret public has inspired books, doomsday cults convinced it predicted the end of the world, and even a hijacking.

The outlines of the secret were first disclosed on May 13 during the Pope's visit to Fatima.

The text was written in 1944 by Lucia dos Santos, now a 93-year-old nun who is the only survivor of the three children, but a succession of popes decided not to reveal it.

Asked if he believed there was now no great danger for the future, Ratzinger said:

"I think so. This (20th century) world of destruction, of violence, of wars finally culminating in the (papal) assassination attempt is the concrete and positive content of this vision and does not point to the course of future history."

He added: "At the end of a century and a millennium...we were able to propose this text to humanity and to the Church in a positive spirit. It indicates that we should use the power of love against the power of violence," he said.

Ratzinger also dismissed suggestions it could have been a prediction of a nuclear conflict.

"It intends to show on the one hand suffering, danger, threats...but also the possible response. The accent is on the response...threats and cruelty are pointed to in order to wake up humanity's conscience and be a call to the power of love and faith," he said.

In her recollection of the third part of the 1917 vision -- the first two parts already have been made public -- Sister Lucia says she and the other two children, Francisco and Jacinta, saw "an angel with a flaming sword".

They then saw "a bishop dressed in white (and) we had the impression that it was the Holy Father".

As the vision continued, the children saw the Pope "passing through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow (and) he prayed for the souls of corpses he met on his way..."

When the Pope reached the top of a mountain and was praying at the foot of a cross "he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him" as he and bishops, priests and nuns and other people "died one after the other".

Angels then "gathered up the blood of the martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls who were making their way to God."

Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca shot and nearly killed the Pope in St Peter's Square in 1981, a time when events in the Pope's Polish homeland were starting a domino effect which would lead to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

While the Pope was shot by a lone gunman, the Vatican said the vision was symbolic, had to be interpreted with hindsight and that Sister Lucia agreed with the interpretation.

The Pope believes the Madonna saved him from death by Agca's bullets, which were fired on the anniversary of one of the visions reportedly seen by the three shepherd children.

The first two parts of the secret concerned a vision of hell, the prediction of the outbreak of World War Two and a warning that Russia would "spread her errors" in the world.